The EU's strength is its diversity

Next week's summit will see the revival of the constitution that many in Britain hoped was dead

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Open borders have meant an influx of eastern European workers

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Tony Blair will have a difficult balancing act to perform at the summit

By Alan Massie

12:01AM BST 16 Jun 2007

Further political integration should be resisted by Tony Blair at next week's summit, says Europhile Alan Massie. The EU already lacks crucial popular support - its hold over nation states needs to be loosened not tightened

The impetus towards European union came first from Britain in a speech made by Churchill in Zurich on September 19, 1946: "There can be no revival of Europe without a spiritually great France and a spiritually great Germany. The structure of a United States of Europe, if well and truly built, will be such as to make the material strength of a single state less important. Small nations will count as much as large ones and gain their honour by their contribution to the common cause."

It has never been clear just what part Churchill envisaged the United Kingdom would play. Sometimes he seemed to suggest that we would participate; more often, that we would support the development of a united Europe from without.

While in opposition, he supported the European Movement in this country and members of the Conservative Party took the lead in establishing the Council of Europe - which still exists, though few understand its function, and even fewer are aware of its existence. Back in office he found other more urgent concerns.

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What is certain is that Churchill's words inspired many here, and many more on the Continent. The need for some form of European union seemed undeniable. Twice in little more than a quarter of a century had Europe torn itself apart in terrible wars. Almost every country had been invaded and occupied by enemy armies. The determination to make war between European states impossible was evident. This could be done by integrating their economies and by creating some form of common political institutions.

Since Britain, although escaping invasion, had suffered grievously in both wars, such a development was clearly in our interest, too. The generations who had known war as adults, and many in my own generation, who were children between 1939-45 and later experienced the austerity of the post-war years and the fear aroused by the Cold War, believed this. Idealism - the hope of making a better world - and apprehension together committed us to the cause of European union.

It is necessary to say this now, as fears rise on the eve of the Brussels summit about the possible revival of the defunct and rejected original EU constitution (which, inter alia, proposed the end of the national veto in dozens of policy areas, the creation of an EU president and foreign minister, and the implementation of a legally binding Charter of Fundamental Rights).

Partly because the idealism has faded, as idealism always does before reality sets in, and partly because the apprehension has been so completely allayed - the Cold War is over and war between western European states is almost inconceivable.

Old enmities have died away. Since 1945 there have been 60 years of peace, and western Europe has enjoyed unprecedented prosperity, in which we have fully shared. All this is taken for granted by most people under the age of 50. Indeed, it is taken so utterly for granted that it has come to seem natural. But of course it isn't - it's the consequence of political decisions.

Meanwhile, the European Union has been established and grown stronger. Being a Thing rather than an Idea, it is often resented and seen to be imperfect. Indeed it is, but we would do well to remember the words which, speaking of the treaty which bound England and Scotland, Walter Scott put in the mouth of Bailie Nicol Jarvie in Rob Roy: "There's nothing sae gude on this side o' Time, but it might hae been better, and that may be said of the Union". Nevertheless, he added, that Union had brought great benefits; and so has the European one.

Some of these benefits are so obvious that we scarcely remark on them. But there is a sense in which we are indeed all Europeans now, and not only because we carry an EU passport. The Treaty of Rome provided for the free movement of capital and labour and implied the free movement of people, of which we have taken full advantage. It is now as common for Londoners to have a second home in France, Spain or Italy, as to have a weekend cottage in Somerset or Norfolk. Budget airlines take people to Budapest, Prague or Riga for parties.

Conversely, every Friday evening the Gare du Nord sees the return home of young French men and women who have become weekly commuters to Britain. Other immigrants from EU states, which, even twenty years ago, were satellites of the Soviet Union, have transformed our labour market. We welcome Polish plumbers, gardeners and builders and Polish delicatessens spring up even in small Scottish towns.

At another level, English has become the lingua franca of Europe and much of the business of the EU is now conducted in our language (even though, for much high-tech work, a knowledge of German might be more useful). That said, in recent years I have regularly conducted seminars at the University of Tübingen in Baden-Württemberg in English, finding the linguistic ability and enthusiasm of German and Eastern European students delightful.

Much sport, too, has become European. The Champions League may not be more important to English fans than the Premiership - but the Premiership itself is now European. Who would have believed, twenty years ago, that clubs like Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool would not have British managers or that England's Player of the Year would be Portuguese? Politicians talk about an "ever-closer union" and the further integration of the member states, but, in truth, the peoples of Europe are ahead of them. Frontiers scarcely exist within the EU and marriage between people of different nationalities is common.

However, for many this development is one thing, but further political integration something else. The one is welcome, the other viewed with suspicion and resentment. These feelings are not confined to this country. The French and the Dutch both rejected the Treaty, which would have established a European Constitution, when they were given the chance to vote in a referendum. There can be no doubt that it would have been rejected here in Britain, probably by a bigger majority. Resentment of the Brussels bureaucracy is widespread and runs deep.

Some of this resentment may be ill-founded. There are, after all, more civil servants in any of the larger European capitals than in Brussels, more indeed in Edinburgh, while fully half of those in Brussels are innocuously occupied in translation work. Yet in these matters perception counts for a great deal. Too many of our laws are made in Brussels, even though most of these are administrative regulations. Most of the laws that affect our own lives - like the Blair government's succession of Criminal Justice Acts - are made, badly, at Westminster.

Indeed, while the state's itch to control or supervise our daily life has been intensifying here, there has been a relaxation in other countries. When, for instance, were you last required to fill in a "fiche" in a French hotel; those documents that the police used to collect every morning to check on the comings and goings of French citizens and foreign nationals?

Oppression is just as likely to come from Westminster and Whitehall as from Brussels. None of this alters the fact that Brussels - that shorthand term for the EU - is resented and disliked, and that there is strong opposition to the strengthening of European institutions and the consequent weakening of the member states.

These are realities that the politicians would be rash to disregard. Pretending that what are believed to be major changes amount to no more than a tidying-up is foolish and dishonest. In any case, "Euro-creep" - the gradual and apparently inexorable extension of the powers and responsibilities of the EU bureaucracy - is unpopular, and not only in Britain.

It is therefore time for those of us who remain committed to the "European Idea" of our youth, and who believe that the EU's record of achieving co-operation between nations is to be admired, to take stock and recognise that pressing ahead with closer integration is unwise and therefore undesirable.

It is unwise because it lacks popular support. It is undesirable because, lacking that popular support, it is provoking a reaction which, at best, will impair the working of the EU institutions, at worst, threaten to bring the edifice crashing down. Politicians cannot sensibly move far ahead of the people they claim to lead. It is foolish to try to do so, for they will find that their following deserts them.

Some of the fears expressed by Eurosceptics and Europhobes are exaggerated. The ambition of some politicians to create a federal super-state has no chance of being realised. This might have been possible in the original Europe of the Six. It might have been possible - although unlikely - when Britain, the Republic of Ireland and the Nordic nations signed the Treaty of Accession. Since the more recent enlargement - and with the prospect of states such as Serbia, Montenegro, Albania, Kosovo, the Ukraine, Georgia and Turkey becoming members - it is an ambition that belongs to cloud-cuckoo-land.

Likewise, the notion that continuing membership of the EU will lead to a loss of national identity seems nonsensical. Half a century after the signing of the Treaty of Rome, the French remain distinctively French, the Germans distinctively German. No one is in a better position to realise the durability of national identity than us in these islands. It is more than seven centuries since England conquered Wales, almost 500 years since an act of Henry VIII's parliament incorporated Wales into England; and yet the Welsh remain Welsh. Nor have the 300 years that have passed since the Treaty of Union of 1707 made the Scots English or the English Scots.

There is a British identity which includes us all, and there is a European one, too. The one doesn't extinguish the other. It is true that the British have, in general, been less committed to the idea of a European community or union than, say, the French or Germans. This is the result of history and geography. The Channel is a broader ditch than the Rhine.

It is also because we have vacillated between Europe and the US. During the post-war years this indecision cost us the chance to take the lead in framing European institutions. Had we done so, the Brussels Commission would have had a different complexion, more like our own Civil Service, more obedient to elected politicians, less capable of launching its own initiatives.

Later, it was because of our Atlanticism that de Gaulle excluded us from membership of what was then the EEC, when the Macmillan government sought it. So today, those who believe that it is our destiny to be tied to the coat-tails of the US remain suspicious of European involvement - despite the lessons that may be drawn from the Iraq war.

Nevertheless, we are a member state of the EU and, unless there is an overwhelming desire to secede - an act with consequences impossible to foresee - it behoves us to make the Union work more efficiently and more agreeably than is now the case. Some will reject this altogether, but they should at least be alive to the danger: that a Europe united without us will, in time and on occasions, be united against us. So what's to be done?

Clearly, a Europe of almost thirty states cannot function as a smaller and more tightly drawn one did. There must be some amendment of its structures. More qualified majority voting is necessary - it is impossible that there should be unanimity on every matter, and wrong that a single veto should make action impossible. At the same time the right to opt out from decisions should be secured, something that John Major achieved at Maastricht over the Social Chapter.

Provision should also be formally made for national parliaments to amend or ignore EU legislation as it applies to their country. Some states do this already, of course, even if not openly; the French are much better than we are at disregarding EU directives they dislike. This is commonsense and the right to apply such commonsense should be recognized.

As things are, and will be for a long time, the enlarged union can function in a manner agreeable to its members only if the union is loosened, not tightened. Diversity threatens it less than an attempt to impose a confining uniformity. It is a Union of sovereign member states - the Gaullist "Europe des États", and should not aspire to be more than that. But it does need a constitution or defining treaty.

It needs it for this reason: a constitution is difficult to amend, and only when amendment is made difficult can the encroachment on the rights of the member states be effectively checked. That constitution should take the form of a confederation, which is an agreement of sovereign states to act in concert for common purposes and to pursue their own line when there is no need for common action or policies. Only in this way can the European Idea of my youth be realised in full, and the fears and resentments of nationalists be assuaged.

This is what Tony Blair must keep in mind at next week's summit. He has a difficult balancing act to perform. If the proposals being brought forward by the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, appear to be the "Constitution" rejected by the French and Dutch electorates, he must not commit Britain to it. To do so would be dishonest and stupid: dishonest because he must know that there would be no majority for it in the referendum which he promised to hold and so he would be handing a poisoned chalice to his successor, Gordon Brown; stupid because such an agreement would play into the hands of the Eurosceptics.

Far from putting Britain "at the heart of Europe" - his old ambition - he would reignite the fierce arguments over our role in Europe which flared up in the last years of the Tory government. In the interests of Britain in Europe - and, indeed, in the interest of each member state - he should argue for the right of individual states to opt out of any provisions of a new treaty that they dislike. To be a good European today is to argue for a flexible Union. Nothing else makes sense in a union of 27 states - with more lined up to join.

Moreover, Blair is on the way out. He must not bind his successor. Indeed, it is reasonable to think that in the peculiar circumstances created by his slow march out of office, it is improper for him to be at this summit at all. It would be better if he had stood aside and left discussions to Brown, for it is Brown who will have to live with the consequences. He has the reputation of being more Eurosceptic than Blair - although one should remember that he was one of those whose arguments in the late 1980s helped to force the Tory government into the Exchange Rate Mechanism.

In truth, no one knows just where Brown stands. However, he is essentially a practical man, concerned with what will work. He will be suspicious of measures which restrict the freedom of action of member states, even while recognising that on some issues - such as climate change - common European policies are not only desirable, but necessary.

Brown is intellectually more formidable than Blair, and probably more so than Merkel or Sarkozy. No one is better fitted to make the case that the future vitality of the EU requires the leaders of the member states to recognise that its strength lies in its diversity, not a suffocating and resented uniformity.